Newman as a down-at-the-heels gumshoe named Harper picks up a framed photograph of the woman portrayed by Winters, and shows it to Wagner’s suspicious playboy character.

Newman: She used to be a pretty hot young starlet. What happened to her?

Wagner, laughing uproariously, blurts out: She got fat!

The next shot, of course, opens with Winters’ character — best described as blowsy — scarfing down a large meal at a local eatery.

Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, back with another look at Shelley Winters thriving love life back when she was indeed a hot young starlet. We are indebted, of course, to the actress’ own recollections as provided in her 1980 autobiography, Shelley: Also Known As Shirley.

In our Dec. 18 blog, we covered the time a 24-year-old Winters had to flee into a chilly night from her studio dressing room to escape the enthusiastic advances of a 43-year-old Nelson Eddy, of all people. This was back in 1944 when both were making Knickerbocker Holiday.

But Winters had more congenial experiences with the following:

Lawrence Tierney: Winters relates an odd tale of winding up in a Sunset Strip restaurant as World War II ended, accompanied by a Nazi sympathizer and the tough guy actor reliably known for fast fists. After Tierney had heard enough from the Nazi sympathizer, he took one look at my anguished face; then he casually picked up (the man) and threw him down the length of the bar, crashing into all the glasses and beer bottles just like in a western…Then he grabbed me and we got out fast. Later, he asked, “would you like to go to a motel with me?” The only answer I could think of was: “Would it take long?”…And it didn’t. So I spent the night of VE Day after the long war with a strange sad actor sleeping at my side…”

William Holden: It was Christmastime in 1949 at the time Winters was working on Paramount’s The Great Gatsby starring Alan Ladd. The actress found herself attending a seasonal bash at the studio’s Writers Building, which always had wild and wooly parties. I found myself drinking a large vodka…and dancing with William Holden. Cornell Wilde …yelled, “Bill, we’re out of ice.” Holden took my hand and made for his dressing room across the street to get ice. Bing Crosby was in his dressing room next door — with Joan Caulfield — also looking for ice. I don’t exactly remember how it happened, but the situation developed in such a way that we forgot about the importance of the ice. So cut only to: Waves pounding on the beach, trees swaying in the storm. (Winters’ rendezvous with Holden became an annual event.) I must say our brief love affairs which lasted from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. Christmas Eves had more fun and happiness than many other relationships in my life…

Marlon Brando: Winter’s describes Brando as a “sometime lover.” As neophyte stage actors who couldn’t afford heated New York apartments, she slept with him to, among other things, keep him warm. Later, when Brando made a huge splash in A StreetcarNamed Desire, Shelley caught an early benefit performance. When Brando was onstage, all you could do was feel, the sexual arousal was so complete…The only other time I experienced it was when I saw Elvis Presley perform live in Las Vegas; men tell me that Marilyn had it for them.

That’s it for now. We’ll catch up with more of Shelley’s flames — two in particular — in a future blog. So, stay tuned.

William Holden, Adolph Zukor, Gene Kelly and MiltonBerle don’t have a whole lot in common. Even so, they all are captured in today’s blog via brief sketches written by one of our veteran Hollywood pals.

Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, back again to welcome literary snapshots from Hy Hollinger, who many moons ago worked as a junior publicist at Warner’s, as a market exec at Paramount, and — more recently — as a distinguished trade journalist at Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

The beauty of these brief, off-the-cuff glimpses of four very different individuals is that they catch each one in a telling, unguarded moment. Nothing terrible, mind you, but not necessarily the way the four would have liked to present themselves.

Hy begins with the costar of 1950′s Sunset Boulevard, the Oscar winner of 1953′s Stalag 17, and the linchpin of director Sam Peckinpah’s seminal 1969 western, The Wild Bunch. (There he is in the photo above.)

“In 1962, as a Paramount marketing staffer, I arranged a cocktail reception in the Paramount building for William Holden, the star of the based-on-a-true-story spy thriller, The Counterfeit Traitor, directed by George Seaton.”

(The movie is based on a book by Alexander Klein, about an American businessman living in Sweden who is blackmailed into spying on Nazi Germany. Holden’s costar was Lilli Palmer. Little seen today, it is considered a unsung gem buried in the Paramount vault.)

“Eric Erickson, the Swedish industrialist on whom the movie was based, was also on hand. Super-agent Charles K. Feldman, who represented Holden, called me over to call attention to a tumbler full of vodka Holden was holding. ‘Get a waiter to stand next to him with a full glass of water,‘ Feldman requested. I gave the waiter $20.”

(It’s no secret that Holden had problems with alcohol. The actor died in November 1981, at 63. His body was found by the manager of the Santa Monica apartment building where Holden was living, alone. He had a two-inch gash in his forehead, which had bled profusely. His blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal driving limit. The Los Angeles county coroner determined that the actor, intoxicated, had tripped on a rug, hit his head on a bedside table, passed out and died from loss of blood.)

MOGUL ADOLPH ZUKOR: “(The studio’s ) founding father still maintained an office at Paramount with the title of chairman emeritus. One day his secretary asked me to accompany him to a Motion Picture Pioneers dinner. I picked Zukor up in a taxi. As I steered him to the dais, he said to me, ‘Pick me up early. I want to get home to catch a fight on the radio.’ The next day my boss summoned me to his office, and told me to pick up the other phone. It was Zukor. ‘Make sure that nice young man gets back the taxi fare,’ he said. At the time, the fair came to less than $2 round trip, including tip.”

GENE KELLY: ”Ernest Lehman, one of Hollywood’s most successful screenwriters (North By Northwest, Sweet Smell of Success, among other titles) invited his friend Sid Garfield, a publicist and column planter for Warner Bros., to have lunch with him and Gene Kelly. Kelly and Garfield hit it off big at the lunch, based mainly on their knowledge of composers and lyricists of popular songs.

“The next day Garfield and Kelly were (separately) walking on Manhattan’s Seventh Avenue. They spied each other but seemed uncertain about the correct protocol on whom should make the first approach at saying ‘hello.’ Both walked on.

“The next day Lehman received calls from Kelly and Garfield, both in essence saying the same thing. “What’s with your friend? We had such a great time at lunch. The next day he passes me by without saying hello.” (Ah, the perils of proper star etiquette. See Hy’s next entry.)

MILTON BERLE: (Returning to New York from a business trip to Chicago, Hy ran into the comedian’s press agent.) “He offered me a ride from the airport in Berle’s limo. I sat in the jump seat near the door. When we crossed the 59th Street bridge (connecting Queens to Manhattan), I suggested that I could get out first since I lived nearby on 55th Street.